Mathematics Resources

IL Teach & Talk K-8 -is a website created by ISBE Math Content Specialists and Illinois Math Educators to provide a deep understanding of specific Content Standards at each grade level in the Illinois Learning Standards. Information here can be used with any curriculum to enhance classroom instruction and specifically incorporate daily math discussions with higher order thinking questions. Materials are designed for the teacher but incorporate instructional strategies, questions, and tasks to use directly in the classroom.

Illuminations website has a large collection of interactive activities/games for all grade levels and all standards. Educators can search by standard or grade level. Many of the activities can be used on an interactive whiteboard (smart-board or Promethean ). No login is required to use the activities. There are also lessons available on the website to work in conjunction with the interactive platform.

Desmos is the best-in-class HTML5 graphing calculator, which millions of students around the world use for free. The platform also has activities on top of that calculator, helping students use a powerful tool to experience all the curiosity, beauty, and sense that math has to offer. Those activities were used so often by so many teachers around the world that they decided to create an Activity Builder, helping every teacher create digital math activities that equal and exceed the activities we create ourselves. Users can create an account to save graphs and data for works in progress. Graphs can be printed or emailed. (calculator platform can be changed into 33 different languages.) (iOS and Android apps available as well.)

Quadrant Defenderis a Tower Defense game that allows users to graph systems of equations and use that information to plan their defenses. This game contains game play elements that require students to engage in budgeting, critical thinking, and situational geometry. Best played in Chrome or Firefox. If users need to play in Internet Explorer, they will have to install the Chrome Frame plug in. This plug in is found at http://www.google.com/chromeframe. Badges in Quadrant Defender are earned by correctly plotting the intercept points of pairs of linear equations. The linear equations vary in complexity and become more difficult as the player progresses through the games.

youcubed from Standford University has many resources on their website including this page with 5 online games to build mathematical understanding. Refraction focuses on fractions, Mathbreakers develops number sense, DragonBox teaches algebra through visuals (apps available as well), Wuzzit Troubles works on computation and finally Motion Math covers a combination of concepts.

Get the Math (Thirteen.org) is about algebra in the real world. See how professionals use math in music, fashion, video games, restaurants, basketball, and special effects. Then take on interactive challenges related to those careers. There are 9 challenges on the platform, each have a teacher resource with standards aligned lesson plans. There are great student centered- real world - applications used to bring understanding of the use of algebraic concepts.

GeoGebrais dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package. GeoGebra is a rapidly expanding community of millions of users located in just about every country. GeoGebra has become the leading provider of dynamic mathematics software, supporting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and innovations in teaching and learning worldwide.

Pixar in a box is designed to help students answer an age old question: Why do I need to learn this stuff? Our answer to this question is a series of interactive lessons, each of which demonstrate how a concept introduced in school is used for creative benefit at Pixar. Within the platform educators can choose the grade level mathematics of the lesson...some lessons have multiple options. EX- Lesson on geometric transformations could be grades 7-8 or High school rotation.

PhET Simulations from University of Coloradoprovides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations. We extensively test and evaluate each simulation to ensure educational effectiveness. These tests include student interviews and observation of simulation use in classrooms. The simulations are written in Java, Flash or HTML5, and can be run online or downloaded to your computer. All simulations are open source (see our source code). Simulations are all grade levels and subjects are physics, biology, chemistry, earth science and math. Users can play with the simulations without an account. Educators can use an account to keep track of students and simulations.

Daum Equation Editor - Online equation editor that will allow the user to save to Google drive, save as an image or text file, increase text and modify the color of different characters in the equation to help educators highlight portions of the instruction.

Teacher Resources

NCTM Illuminations has created a tool that allows educators to generate the supplies needed for any activity. Need a pentagonal pyramid that's six inches tall? Or a number line that goes from ‑18 to 32 by 5's? Or a set of pattern blocks where all shapes have one-inch sides? You can create all those things and more with the Dynamic Paper tool. Place the images you want, then export it as a PDF activity sheet for your students or as a JPG image for use in other applications or on the web.

Mathematics in Movies - This is a collection of movie clips in which Mathematics appears. The site is now in HTML5 video and should be accessible by all devices. If not, chose the direct video links. To include a clip into a presentation, chose the quicktime version. A wide variety of genres and decades, some that students won't recognize but will certainly enjoy the connection.